DCU Institute to lead €2.4m EU project tackling fake news

The DCU Institute for Future Media and Journalism (FuJo) will lead a three-year, €2.4 million project to tackle the issue of fake news by tracking and flagging online disinformation, especially through social media.

Funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme the project, titled Provenance, will focus on finding solutions to enable people to distinguish between original information and manipulated information or disinformation.

The project will develop a ‘verification layer’ that will employ advanced digital technologies for multimedia analytics (including image forensics) to record any modifications to content and to identify similar pieces of content. A ‘verification indicator’ will contextualise individual pieces of content with relevant information, including when the content was registered, by whom, and any subsequent transactions. The project solutions will be of particular use for consumers of news and political information but also for content creators who want to secure their content from manipulation or unauthorised use.

Commencing in December under associate professor Dr Jane Suiter, the project team will include academic and industry partners from Ireland, Spain, the Czech Republic and Austria. Irish collaborators include the SFI Adapt Research Centre for Digital Content Technology at Trinity College Dublin and the content intelligence company NewsWhip.

“The speed and volume of disinformation on social media has the potential to undermine democracy, business, and social reputations,” said Dr Suiter.

“This project will enable the tracking of online content and enable the level of its manipulation through Web and social media platforms to help consumers and business not only track their own material but to have confidence in the content that they see online.”